7 Reasons to get your Children a Cat.

1. Cleanliness. Cats are self-cleaning. They fastidiously preen themselves with their Velcro-textured tongues and consequently, unlike dogs, never require bathing. In fact, cats are much cleaner than children and therefore set a good example to them. They also bury their own excrement so you don’t have to worry about that either. If you’re really lucky, they’ll bury it in a neighbour’s garden. This is probably something you shouldn’t teach your children to do.

2. Ninja. Children are loud and noisy; cats are silent and alert. You can use the cat to demonstrate silence and awareness to your children. There is no better stealth training than attempting to sneak up on a cat. Your children will learn to tread carefully and to watch out for the cat’s ever-alert swivelling ears. Who knows, they may eventually become domestic-ninjas. Like me.

3. Exotic. You want a sensible, low-maintenance, low-risk animal, but your children don’t. Children never want sensible pets. They always want something terrifying and dangerous like a tarantula, a piranha or a crocodile. A cat is an ideal compromise. Cats come with a free snake. It’s at the back.

4. Porn-Star-Name. The name of your first pet is the first part of your porn-star-name so your choice of a first pet for your children is important. Tortoises are called things like George and Simon; dogs are called things like Pip and Rover; cats, on the other hand, have cool names like Horatio or Socks. If you need to know how important the right pet is in determining your childrens’ future porn-star-name you should ask my wife, Fred Townsend. Or you could ask my friend whose first pet was a cat, Lucifer Jordan.

5. Independence. Cats come and go as they please through a little hole in the door. They go out to stare at the garden gate and sit under cars for reasons that we don’t understand. The important thing though, is that they do it unaided. Unlike dogs, there’s no endless walking and throwing sticks to distract your children from their homework. Besides, they’ll eventually tire of walking a dog and you’ll end up doing it yourself.

6. Biscuits. Cats don’t have biscuits and chocolate drops, unlike dogs. This means that your children will have less opportunity to play pet food related practical jokes on you or unsuspecting house-guests. They will still substitute salt for sugar and gravy granules for instant coffee, but being served dog biscuits with your cup of tea is one less thing you’ll have to worry about if you get a cat. This is what eating a dog biscuit did to Jennifer Aniston’s face. Poor, poor Jennifer.

7. Respect. Cats are cute and cuddly, soft and furry, content and purry – until angered. When you anger a cat it turns from a docile, supine teddy bear of an animal into a hissing, spitting, furious mass of teeth and claws. Nothing teaches children to respect others like being bitten on the hand or losing an eye. If they survive cat-ownership, they will be equipped for life.